Never-before-seen videos show frantic phone calls from congressional officials

While Donald Trump was absent subscribers, it was the holy union of elected officials inside the Capitol for help. Never-before-released videos of one of the US state’s most senior figures, Nancy Pelosi, and other elected officials were released Thursday by the commission investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault, showing how those officials frantically made phone calls during the attack for law enforcement reinforcements.

It shows Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, tense but keeping her cool in a secure location on January 6, 2021. “There has to be a way to save people’s sense that he there is a certain security or a certain confidence in the fact that the state works and that we can elect the president of the United States,” she said.

That day, elected officials gathered at Congressional headquarters in Washington to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. But a crowd of supporters of Donald Trump, for whom the ballot was “stolen” from the Republican, demonstrated in front of the Capitol.

Some of them stormed the Capitol, violence that sent shock waves around the world.

“The damn Minister of Defense”

In the video, a stunned Pelosi is told that elected officials have started donning gas masks. A visibly angry Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer later said he was going to “call the damn minister” of Defense. “Can you bring in the Maryland National Guard too?” we see him asking Christopher Miller, acting Minister of Defense at the time.

Then he calls Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. “Why don’t you get the President to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Justice, as part of your policing duties?” “, he throws to him.

Nancy Pelosi is filmed calling Virginia Governor Ralph Northam while watching the events on television. “Hello governor, it’s Nancy (…). They are breaking windows, they say someone was shot, it’s just horrible and it’s all at the instigation of the President of the United States,” she told him.

The two Democrats are also seen at one point alongside Republican figures, including Mitch McConnell, discussing ways to get help with the Pentagon. At the end, it is Mike Pence who announces to elected officials the good news: the Capitol is secure, the vote will be able to resume.